The extraordinary filling up of the senate
was undertaken by the monarch alone. In the case of the ordinary
additions he secured to himself a permanent influence through
the circumstance, that the electoral colleges were bound by law(23)
to give their votes to the first twenty candidates for the quaestorship
who were provided with letters of recommendation from the monarch;
besides, the crown was at liberty to confer the honorary rights
attaching to the quaestorship or to any office superior to it,
and consequently a seat in the senate in particular, by way of exception
even on individuals not qualified.

23. This certainly had reference merely to the elections for
the years 711 and 712 (Staatsrecht, ii. a 730); but the arrangement was
doubtless meant to become permanent.

The selection of the extraordinary
members who were added naturally fell in the main on adherents
of the new order of things, and introduced, along with -equites-
of respectable standing, various dubious and plebeian personages
into the proud corporation--former senators who had been erased
from the roll by the censor or in consequence of a judicial sentence,
foreigners from Spain and Gaul who had to some extent to learn
their Latin in the senate, men lately subaltern officers
who had not previously received even the equestrian ring,
sons of freedmen or of such as followed dishonourable trades,
and other elements of a like kind.